


Midnight Mass

by OceanTheSoulRebel



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Background Kanders, Gen, Pre-Origins, post-Karl sent to Kirkwall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 14:39:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16088165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OceanTheSoulRebel/pseuds/OceanTheSoulRebel
Summary: A Templar and a Mage meet after midnight at the chapel. It doesn't go how either of them expect.





	Midnight Mass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cullenlovesmen (handersmyheart)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/handersmyheart/gifts).



He shouldn’t be here. Not just because he wasn’t allowed— it _was_ after curfew, though he didn’t particularly care—but because at any minute one of the Maker-damned templars will be back and harass him back to his room, and all Anders wanted was one moment—just one!—of _peace._

Which was how he was found crying in the Kinloch Hold chapel, in the wee hours of the morning, by a templar.

“Are... are you okay?”

An awkward pat landed on his shoulder, tentative and uncertain, and Anders darted a watery glare at the poor curly-haired man. “Oh, it’s you,” he sniffed. “The new one.”

“Cullen,” the new guy supplied, as if the introduction helped any. The baby-faced templar sat beside him on the pew, his arms resting against the pew ahead of them. “I come here when I need the guidance, or somewhere to just... be,” he confided quietly. “Well, not here, specifically—I’ve only been here a few days, after all—but in general. The Chantry. It’s... peaceful.”

“Somewhere that isn’t surrounded by mages every hour of the day, you mean? I'm sure it’s appealing.” Anders wiped his eyes with his sleeve, surreptitiously checking the exits of the chapel. Even without the heavy armor, Anders would bet he could beat Cullen in a foot race. He could be out of the room in a handful of seconds, he was sure of it, and it would be just Cullen’s word against his own that he was caught out of his room after curfew.

Not that it would be much of an argument, all things considered. He was a mage, after all, apparently damned with the Maker’s curse for some sin or another, and Cullen was Andraste’s own templar in shining armor, sent to Thedas to shepherd and protect the innocent from his surely maleficar-ish ways, or some such tripe.

But still. He could be out of here in a breath, as long as Cullen didn’t do something rude like smite him.

Anders eyed him warily. _Would_ he? The young ones never seemed the type, but he’d seen so many grow from well-meaning wonder to jaded and cruel in the span of just a few months over the years. Why would Cullen be any different? How long would it take for this newest batch of fresh blood for Kinloch to start following in its predecessors’ footsteps? He checked the door again.

“You don’t have to run,” Cullen said softly. He hadn’t moved except to clasp his hands together before him. “It’s the Chantry. Prayer has no time frame.”

“I’m sure Greagoir shares your opinion,” Anders grumbled. Blast and damnation, now Cullen knew. He was a sharp one.

Cullen turned to him, his brown eyes wide and sincere. He really must be new, Anders thought. The idea bothered him more than it should.

“Would you... do you mind if I pray? With you, I mean. I don’t mean to intrude on your solitude, you just looked so...”

_Tear-soaked? Wounded? Like my spirit had been slowly ground down by this institution you could leave at any time, for no reason at all, but that I’ll never escape, and now there’s finally something that might break me?_

“...lonely,” Cullen finished after a moment of consideration.

“I...” Anders bristled for a moment, but the snide remark he’d readied died just as swiftly on his tongue. He slumped in the pew and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath against the rapid dance of his heartbeat. “That’d be nice,” he said instead, only half-lying.

Cullen gave a slow smile before turning toward the statue of Andraste, bowing toward the stone effigy. “The Chant is especially helpful when I feel troubled,” he offered.

“What do you pray for?”

Anders didn’t really mean to be nice to the templar. He was a _templar,_ after all, for Maker’s sake, yet the words tumbled like stones from his lips.

Cullen cleared his throat. “My, ah, my family.” His hands twitched, fingers flexing around the tight fist he’d made. “My friends. The town I was raised in. Things like... things like that.” He grimaced, fidgeting in his seat before resting his forehead against his clasped hands. “There are rumors of darkspawn to the south, and I worry... and pray.”

Anders ducked his head to hide the sudden pooling of new tears in his eyes. He shouldn’t have asked.

“What about you?” Cullen quietly asked.

 _Demons,_ he almost said, or would have, if he were profoundly stupid. Never mind that it was true, or mostly true, at least. “Much the same,” he said. Anders studied the soft toe of his leather boots, scuffed and worn thin with use. He couldn’t remember when he had been given these by the disgruntled quartermaster. How long had it been?

He bit his lip. “Friends and family, what little of both I have.” _For Karl. For the cart to turn around and bring him back. For the chance to escape. For the earth to swallow whole this entire tower, but it would be okay as long as Karl was back._

Thick droplets ran over his cheeks to dampen his boots. “I pray for—for my—” a shuddering sob wracked through him. Anders shook his head. He couldn’t speak about him, not even if Cullen were the Divine herself promising their freedom. He bit back another choked cry. “My mother,” he said, and it was true.

Anders could still remember her, or  the memory of her, at least, all soft hair and strong hands. He remembered the way she’d flinched at his father’s yelled words. What he had said in the moment was lost but the meaning was all the same, anger and shame and fear and loathing roiling in their little farmhouse.

He remembered the screaming—her screaming, when the Templars came to take him away, leaving her alone with the hands that had grown heavy and sharp.

“I pray she’s safe,” he muttered hollowly.

Cullen shuffled, and if he had come incrementally closer to Anders’ side as he did so, neither of them mentioned it. One of his hands once again rose to rest on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Cullen finally said, after the silence crept back in. He didn’t move his hand, instead squeezed the meat of Anders’ shoulder for a moment. “I... I’m sorry.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I think I’d rather pray than talk about it.”

“Right, of course.” Cullen brought his hands back together in a loose clasp on the back of the pew in front of him. “I... yes.” He cleared his throat as Anders moved into a similar position, head bent and hands interlocked.

“‘Maker, my enemies are abundant,’” Cullen intoned, voice confident and sure of the words in a way Anders supposed only templars and Chantry Mothers might know. “‘Many are those who rise up against me. But my faith sustains me; I shall not fear the legion, should they set themselves against me.”

 _Canticle of Trials._ Anders snorted. _At least it’s appropriate._ “’In the long hours of the night,’“ he answered, “’when hope has abandoned me, I will see the stars and know Your Light remains.’“

“‘I have heard the sound, a song in the stillness, the echo of Your voice, calling creation to wake from its slumber.’”

“‘How can we know You? In the turning of the seasons, in life and death, in the empty space where our hearts hunger for a forgotten face?’”

His heart dropped between his ankles. _Andraste, please, don’t let me forget him._

They went on, trading verses—some in order and others out of place—until Anders fell silent. Cullen paused for just a moment before continuing, reciting the rest of the Canticle from memory with hardly a hesitation. The two of them sat in the flickering sconce light of the chapel, the crimson and gold candles making a puddle of pooled wax at Andraste’s stone feet.

“I’m sorry,” Cullen eventually said again. “It must be… I… I hope everyone you care for is okay.”

Anders huffed, gazed unfocused as she stared in the general vicinity of Andraste’s toes. “Me too,” he said. “Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> A loose prequel to ["Crisis of Faith"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16088345).
> 
>  
> 
> Originally posted to Tumblr [here](https://ocean-in-my-rebel-soul.tumblr.com/post/177123283296/hi-sweetie-id-like-you-send-you-a-little)
> 
> Come find me on tumblr at [ocean-in-my-rebel-soul](https://ocean-in-my-rebel-soul.tumblr.com)
> 
> Comments and concrit always appreciated! Thank you for reading!
> 
>  


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